Though the weather is still warm, the beginning of school clearly marks the mental transition from Summer to Fall. Two days ago, I concluded a month long series of posts for Wind Down Wednesdays:
- Stop, drop and roll your way to better scrapping
- Are you a digital clutterbug?
- When scrapping gives you lemons…
- Set yourself up for success
At the beginning of the month, I promised you a month of simple tips to help you relax, unwind and get ready for Fall. So tell me, what did you think of this series?
This summer was full of travel for me, both for work and family. August seemed the hardest, because I was ready to be home. All this time away made me realize I’m a little over-committed in certain areas. My success list would include:
- Deciding to print in 8×8 instead of 12×12
- Letting go of one CT commitment
- Unsubscribing to blogs I no longer valued
On my to-do list for September:
- Send off LOs to be printed by Scrapping Simply
- Purchase 8×8 albums (hopefully w/ gift card)
- Enforce time limits for blog reading, Twitter and forums
Let’s discuss your progress! Please share one thing you did to simplify your memory keeping in August and one thing you plan to do in September.
One thing I did in August was to start a project I felt motivated to do (vacation scapping) even though I haven’t finished a prior project. Usually I would tell myself I must finish one thing before starting the next, which basically ends up in me stalling and not getting anything done! Lesson learned: follow your mojo!
SO, big question: why are you changing to 8×8 prints? Although I read you regularly, I must’ve missed that! Anyhow, I am considering the same for cost considerations but I’m having trouble letting go of my 12×12 habit!
And, yes, I totally hear you on enforcing time limits for blog reading! I must do that as well! I find it cuts into the time I could’ve been scrapping or photo editing!
There were a lot of reasons
1.) 8×8 prints costs half as much, 8×8 albums are cheaper too
2.) 8×8 albums are easier to store upright
3.) 8×8 albums are easier to browse, especially for kids
4.) 8×8 is a cute size?
I’m also switching to D-Ring instead of postbound/snapload. I’m making this switch starting with 2009. I only need to reprint a handful of LOs then.
My August things were the same as yours! AND, my September items: PRINT layouts, scrap my summer (since I kinda lost my mojo!), and finish a couple of mini albums.
Speaking of printing, did you see about the sale at Scrappingsimply.com?
25% OFF ALL PRINTS!
$1.49 for 12×12
74¢ for 8×8
Sunday and Monday August 30 and 31st.
This is a MUST DO. Jpeg all those layouts and get busy!! I’m cropping for 12 hours on Saturday with friends, and my sole goal will be to see how many layouts I can get ready for printing!!
I often think about 8×8, for the cost of the prints but mostly for lugging the album around to show people. Rarely do I have anyone over and show them my scrapbook – it’s usually me taking it somewhere to show it off. And they get so heavy!!
I get stuck though thinking WHEN would I switch? I have so many albums already started but far from finished. Do I finish those off in 12×12 but start new ones in 8×8, or do I re-print in 8×8 and finish it off that way? I can never decide.
I know no matter what I would design in 12×12 so that I do have the option of printing larger (especially since I like to hang them on the wall sometimes).
Any suggestions on where I should cut off and make the change?
Also, do you find you have to re-learn about what text sizes will be readable when you print and how easily you’ll see the photos? Do you design any differently for 8×8 than you did for 12×12?
Christie, I’m in the middle of making the change. I don’t keep my books as organized as you, though. I started out printing some layouts both ways, to see how it worked. I figured if I didn’t like the small ones, I could still put them in a book and give them to grandma! She likes everything!
I scrap 12×12, but am mostly printing 8×8 now. I haven’t had to make many adjustments, they size down surprisingly well. I find that on my monitor I’m looking at the layout at about 8″ square, so I use fonts and stuff that work well at that size. Looking back now, they look kinda oversized at 12×12. I’ve yet to print a 12×12 that I didn’t like at 8×8! Your style might not work that way though, I suggest you print some both ways and see. You can always give the small ones to the kids to hang on their walls if you don’t like them!
Well I don’t have kids, but that is a good idea for the future 🙂 I did experiment once with printing a bunch of 8×8’s when MyPicTales had that 100 free prints thing going on – I didn’t have that many new layouts to print so I just printed all my current ones 8×8 to see the difference. At the time, I didn’t like it. But I think it’s hard if you have the 8×8 and 12×12 prints right next to each other. LOL – if I only printed 8×8 and didn’t look at it larger, I’d probably be happy.
My other issue is I make a lot of layouts that have MANY photos. I use a lot of Yin’s double page templates where there are 13-20 photos across 2 pages… so they do print pretty small 8×8.
Guess I’ll have to just keep experimenting… but at some point I need to commit!!!! 🙂
When I first received 12×12 prints, I was surprised at how big they were. Now, I’d scrapped a few paper pages before at 12×12, but something about the transition from the view on my 13″ Macbook to this page made them look ginormous. I did print a second batch at that size, but my album is now so heavy that it would crush a small child.
I also wanted to find something that could sit upright on a shelf and not collect as much dust.